


Without a Trace

by magisterpavus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Bounty Hunters, Dubious Morality, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Smut, Mutual Pining, POV Shiro (Voltron), Space Pirates, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, that's the first time ive ever used that tag LMAO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 14:02:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16745362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterpavus/pseuds/magisterpavus
Summary: It’s been three years since the paladins destroyed Voltron in every possible reality, and three years since Keith was subsequently wiped from existence in all of them.The problem is, Shiro doesn’t want to accept that Keith’s gone. The problem is, accepting that Keith’s gone is too close to forgetting him. And that, Shiro refuses to do.





	Without a Trace

**Author's Note:**

> this is inspired by [this lovely art by @velosss previously @danny-ng](https://velosss.tumblr.com/post/180443847787/what-if-paladins-had-to-destroy-voltron-in-every) which thoroughly hurt me in the best way :) please give the artist some love <3
> 
> sometimes ya just gotta write some angst, and i always see stuff with keith coping badly and acting out, but shiro? hooo boy, dude's got a lot of potential for self-destruction and nihilism. so here's that i guess

It’s been three years since the paladins destroyed Voltron in every possible reality, and three years since Keith was subsequently wiped from existence in all of them.

In hindsight, Shiro can’t believe none of them realized it would happen. But the Universe was at stake, and they knew what they had to do to save it — and they did it. For months, they traveled from reality to reality with the trans-reality wormhole Coran created, ensuring that Voltron would never come to fruition. Some realities were more difficult than others, and some were almost too easy.

The idea was that by stopping the trans-reality comet from crashing into Daibazaal, the Galra and Alteans would never gain access to the comet’s unique quintessence, and the lions would never be created. The Galra Empire would not rise beyond its intact home planet, and Altea would thrive in peace.

King Alfor passed peacefully after a full life, during which he never had a chance to create the lions or paladins, as did Haggar, who never experimented on the rift’s quintessence, because there was no rift. She then never met Zarkon, and Lotor was never born, and his parents were never driven to quintessence-induced madness. This was consistent in every reality they “fixed.”

But Lotor was not the only one whose parents met because of Voltron.

Shiro remembers that terrible final moment with aching clarity. The last Voltron had just been destroyed. Everyone was celebrating, not in the Castle of Lions, because there were no more Lions, but under the clear, starry skies of Altea.

The last Voltron was their Voltron. They went back in time. They did what they always did. Except this time; this time Keith was there, in their reality, in the final reality in which he would never be born.

“Shiro,” he said, and Shiro hates that his name was the first and last thing Keith thought to say, reaching out for him with arms that no longer existed. Shiro stared at him, uncomprehending, as Keith’s entire right side dissolved into thin air. Keith stared back, and in his eyes Shiro saw acceptance, not fear, and realized Keith had known this was going to happen all along.

“Keith,” Shiro whispered, and he remembers lunging for him, trying and failing to catch the fading fragments of the best man he’s ever known. Keith was like a ghost, intangible, untouchable, dead.

Keith smiled at him, and then he was gone.

“No,” Shiro said, like that would bring him back, like he hadn’t just aided in the destruction of Keith’s very existence.

 

That moment plays in his head behind his eyelids even now, when Keith is little more than a memory. That’s all he’ll ever be. There was no body. There was no grave. Shiro wishes he’d insisted on a grave. At least then, his memory would feel more solid, and less like sand slipping through his fingertips.

Krolia already knew when they told her. She had known for months.

“Yes,” she said, staring down at the blade in her hands, “Keith told me.”

“He _told_ you?!” Lance had demanded in disbelief. “What, and you let him go through with it?”

She looked up dully, sheathing the knife and affixing it to her hip. “I had no choice,” she said, and walked out the door. None of them have seen her since. Shiro can’t blame her, but he misses her. She knew Keith just as well as he did, if not better, from their time together in the Quantum Abyss. He wants to talk to someone about Keith, anyone. Maybe that will make Keith feel less...lost.

Shiro would like to think he isn’t codependent. He would like to believe the “Coping With Death of a Loved One” books Hunk keeps giving him are doing any good. But the truth of it is that he’s never going to get over Keith. He’s stuck somewhere between the third and sixth stages of grief, and on bad days he backslides into complete denial.

The problem is, he doesn’t want to accept that Keith’s gone. The problem is, accepting that Keith’s gone is too close to forgetting him. And that, Shiro refuses to do.

“Hey,” Pidge says on a quiet, golden afternoon six months after Keith’s gone. “Shiro...we’re all really worried about you. Leaving the Garrison, and ignoring our calls, and isolating yourself like this...it has to stop.”

Shiro exhales, leaning against the windowpane, and says, “Yeah. I know. Sorry, Katie. I’ll get better.”

“It’s okay,” she whispers, and bites her lip. “Listen, I...we know you and Keith were...close. And I can’t imagine how hard it would be to lose someone you loved so much, who loved you so much —”

“Like a brother,” Shiro says.

“What?”

He shakes his head and stands. “Nothing. Keith was like a brother to me, and he felt the same way. That’s all.”

Pidge gives him an odd look. “Brothers,” she says slowly, “right. You know, Shiro, I don’t think he actually…” She trails off. “You didn’t know he was in love with you?”

Shiro’s brain grinds to a halt. “No,” he says. “I — that isn’t — what are you _talking_ about?”

Pidge looks away. “I’m sorry,” she says. “This was a mistake.”

“No, I want to hear it,” Shiro says, though his heart is approximately thirty seconds from breaking beyond repair.

Pidge sighs. “He didn’t think you felt the same way,” she murmurs. “I don’t think he told anyone else, except maybe Krolia. He told me in the tenth reality we went to.”

Shiro swallows back the lump in his throat. “The one with the purple sunsets?”

Pidge nods. “Do you want to know how long?”

“No, but tell me anyway.”

“Since before Kerberos,” Pidge admits, staring at her shoes, and Shiro has to clutch the door frame for support. “He loved you, Shiro. More than anything. And he spent his last moments with you. That has to count for something.”

“I see,” Shiro says, but he can’t hear her anymore. “Thanks for telling me.”

*

He told Pidge he would get better, but he lied. Because to her, “get better” means “stop mourning.” And he’s still mourning, it’s just that now, he’s doing something about it, because he thinks he might die if he doesn’t. He might die if he does, too. 

It takes some convincing for Coran to let him use the trans-reality wormhole, but not much.

“He loved me,” Shiro tells Coran over a bottle of bourbon under stars that look too much like Altea’s.

“For such a smart man, you really are dumber than a herd of yagadoo,” Coran retorts.

“Yeah,” Shiro agrees, and clinks his glass. “But I’m gonna find him.”

Coran looks at him with open pity. “You do that, paladin,” he says, and knocks back his drink.

*

Shiro doesn’t find him.

He does, however, find Kieran, Reave, Lyle, and Dari. He finds every form of alcohol known to the Universe. He finds tattoos that glow in the dark and prosthetics that don’t float and aren’t weapons, though after a year in the third reality he visits, he can finally admit he prefers the weaponized ones. He feels too vulnerable without it.

Time passes strangely as he flits from one reality to the next. Coran claims he’s going to cut Shiro off every time he returns to Earth, but he never does. Coran still feels sorry for him, and after all, he isn’t doing any harm. He doesn’t belong in any of the realities he visits, but he doesn’t feel like he belongs on Earth, either. The other paladins were his friends only through circumstance. Without Voltron, without Keith, there’s nothing tying him to them. Coran, at least, understands that.

And eventually, Shiro stops looking, and Coran stops asking if he had any luck this time. He takes the trinkets Shiro brought back for him and the others without complaint, and turns a blind eye to how Shiro’s reality hopping might be impacting space time. Because Shiro’s _getting better._ Right. He’s at the acceptance stage, according to Allura, but there’s no peace in it. Only the empty understanding that he will never find what he was looking for.

Shiro’s at least careful not to kill or fuck anyone important. He’s the _responsible_ one, after all.

There’s a certain freedom in purposelessness. Shiro can do whatever he wants, and no one can stop him. Coran warns him against staying too long in any one reality, but then Shiro finds one he never wants to leave. It’s his favorite because no one cares. Nihilism is the norm, and once Shiro has his own ship, a shitty clanker vessel outfitted with big guns and deceptively powerful engines, he knows he’s there to stay.

He names it Kerberos, for irony’s sake.

Shiro attacks pirate ships, because he can, and the pay is good. Besides, _Takashi Shirogane, Legendary Bounty Hunter_ has a ring to it.

But he goes by Kuron. What? Irony’s the one thing he can count on, these days.

He feels more like Kuron than Shiro, anyway. More than once, he wonders if the clone’s body is taking over, only to conclude he’s just losing his mind and drinking too much. Really, it’s a wonder it didn’t happen sooner, given everything he’s been through. He used to believe that patience and kindness would outweigh any of the pain, but he was wrong.

The more numb he gets, the more he hurts, and it’s infuriating. So he blasts ships to smithereens. He brings in criminals to be executed or imprisoned for life, takes his pay, and leaves without remorse. Sometimes, the bounty calls for heads, so he brings those, instead. It doesn’t matter to him.

He gets a reputation; among the pirates, among the other bounty hunters. It was easier when he was an unknown, but now people recognize him. People fear him. He drinks alone and he hunts alone and he sleeps alone.

Shiro didn’t want to be alone. That was never the point of this. But he’s a danger to others and to himself. Maybe he always has been.

He’s doing a job on an asteroid slum called Charon when it all goes south. He agreed to work with another team of hunters to take down the crime lord’s den, and that was where he first went wrong — one of the hunters betrayed them all, bribed by the crime lord herself, and when Shiro wakes up he’s handcuffed on a ship in the middle of space with the most beautiful man he’s ever seen.

 _It’s Keith,_ is his first thought, but of course that’s impossible.

“Here’s the deal,” Not Keith says, arms folded and eyes sharp as cut glass, “I’m taking you to the private prison ship Purgatory, and you’re gonna rot in a cell there for the rest of your sorry days. Got it?”

“What’s your name?” Shiro asks him, and Not Keith slams the door in his face.

It looks like him. It really, really looks like him. But it can’t be. All the Keiths were never born. Doppelgängers, Shiro supposes, are possible. Is he really so desperate that he would…

Yes. Yes, he is.

The next time Not Keith comes into the room with a tray of surprisingly good food and a cup of water, Shiro asks him again.

“Why?” Not Keith snaps, nudging the tray of food with his boot. “We’re not here to chat.”

Shiro tilts his head. “But we could be,” he says. “If you want.”

Not Keith purses his lips. “Red,” he says. “My name is Red. Will you shut up, now?”

“Make me.” _Red. His name is Red? Seriously?_

Red’s eyes narrow. “You got a death wish?”

Shiro shrugs. “Yeah,” he says. “Pretty much.”

Red blinks, like that wasn’t what he expected. “Huh.”

He looks so much like Keith that it hurts. Shiro never thought he would see him again and it isn’t, _it isn’t him,_ but his mind _wants_ to be tricked into pretending.

“Get up,” Red says after a pause, watching uncertainly as Shiro staggers to his feet, hands still bound. “I’ve heard all sorts of stories about you, Kuron,” he adds. “They say you’ve brought in hundreds, killed even more, and all of that without a single drop of remorse. That true?”

“Why do you ask?” Shiro smiles, now looking down at him. “Are _you_ a criminal?”

“Murder in the name of paid justice is still murder,” Red retorts. He shifts nervously. “I don’t have a bounty, if that’s what you mean.”

“It isn’t,” Shiro drawls, “what I mean.”

Red glares at him fiercely. “I could take you, and we’re in deep space,” he says. “So don’t try anything.”

Before Shiro can ask what he means, he reaches out and deactivates the handcuffs. They spring free, falling to the floor with a clatter, and Shiro stands before him, eyes wide. Red gulps visibly and takes a step closer. Shiro’s eyes widen further. Neither of them move or speak. There’s a bead of sweat sliding down Red’s jaw. Shiro wants to lick it away, and follow it to Red’s lips.

Shiro says, “Do _you_ have a death wish?”

Red chuckles, more than a little strangled. “Yeah,” he whispers, “pretty much. You gonna fuck me, or what?”

Shiro sucks in a sharp breath. “That an offer or a threat?”

“Why don’t you find out,” Red breathes, and kisses the hell out of him.

It’s both.

Shiro pins him to the cold metal wall and Red squirms against him, jamming a knee between Shiro’s legs, forcing him to grind; in reply Shiro hoists Red up, hands cupping his ass, Red’s lithe legs wrapped tight around his waist like a promise. Red bites at his lips with sharp little teeth until they bleed as Shiro carries him blindly out of the cell, hits several walls, and somehow manages to find his way around the small ship to a bedroom. Red goes down on the bed hard, landing with a grunt and a bounce, and Shiro crawls over him, dizzy at the sight of what his brain screams is _Keith, Keith, Keith._

“Thought you were just gonna fuck me against the wall,” Red gasps, head falling back against his pillow as Shiro bites and sucks at his neck, losing himself in the heat of Red’s flushed skin.

“No,” Shiro murmurs, slowing down a little, “but there will be time for that later.”

“Later?” Red squeaks, then louder as Shiro’s cold hands slide up and under his shirt.

Shiro realizes then that Red is afraid. He’s trembling, grasping at Shiro’s clothes and breathing hard and fast, pulse fluttering under Shiro’s fingertips. Shiro pauses — his hands dwarf Red’s slender waist, and Red is completely trapped under him by his sheer bulk.

Red knows about what he’s done. Who he’s killed. What he’s capable of. Shiro wishes he didn’t know any of it, but that’s the price he pays for treating this world like the manifestation of his midlife crisis.

“Did you think I was gonna kill you?” Shiro whispers into the tense air.

Red’s chest heaves. “Still could,” he says. “I read your file. Your hand can cut through solid steel.”

“It can do a lot of other things, too,” Shiro says, and activates it, not into attack mode, but into a low vibration. He lays his warm, thrumming palm over Red’s lower belly, scratching lightly at the dark trail of hair there. Red shudders, pupils dilating. “Yes?”

“Please,” Red groans, and spreads his legs.

*

True to his word, Shiro fucks him later against the wall, Red’s flexing thighs hitched up around Shiro’s hips, back arching off the metal with every thrust as Shiro holds him up with straining arms. Red claws at his back and moans into his ear and Shiro is happy to oblige his every plea for more. Red may not be Keith, but Shiro treats him the way he would have treated Keith, if they had more time together. If they had all the time in the Universe together.

Red, for his part, eagerly returns the favor. They make it to the shower after the drying fluids layering their skin become unbearable, and Red sinks to his knees without preamble, mouthing over the water droplets on Shiro’s thighs like he belongs there.

“Shit, baby,” Shiro murmurs; the pet name just slips out, but Red lifts his shining dark eyes to him, takes Shiro’s cock into his mouth, and moans in reply. Shiro’s head thuds back into the wall and his fingers tangle in long black hair, longer than Keith’s ever was, but he likes it, they both do, and Red moans again around his cock when Shiro pulls, just hard enough to sting.

Red won’t let Shiro get him off after; they’re both over-sensitive, but he does let Shiro work the soap into a lather on his body and in his hair, though he looks puzzled at the action. “Can wash myself,” he mumbles, bruised knees shaking visibly from the effort of standing.

“Uh-huh,” Shiro says, and kneads at the muscles of his upper back. Red slumps into him. His hand curls on Shiro’s chest and Shiro pauses — there’s a mole on the back of his left hand, just like Keith’s.

But it can’t be.

He’s unsettled by the time the shower shuts off, but he’s also exhausted. Red grumbles something and tosses him a towel. Shiro prepares himself for being thrown back into the cell, but instead Red makes a clumsy grab for his hand and leads him back to his bed, half heartedly toweling himself off before flopping down into the messy sheets. His wet hair leaves dark imprints on the beige cotton, and when Shiro cautiously folds down onto the bed beside him, it falls in cold black tendrils over Shiro’s bare chest.

Shiro wraps an arm around his waist and burrows close; the room is cold, space is cold, that’s his excuse. Red makes a sleepy sound and presses a sloppy kiss under his jaw.

“See, I didn’t kill you,” Shiro mumbles into his hair.

“Nope, I’m definitely dead,” Red yawns, and passes out.

*

Shiro wakes up to Keith snoring in the crook of his arm.

He jolts upright, barely holding back a stream of curses before he remembers, and then he wants to swear for a different reason. He spent most of last night fucking a stranger who looked like Keith. A stranger who’s holding him hostage and bringing him to a prison ship. Not Keith.

“Shit, Takashi, what have you done?” he groans.

“Who’s Takashi?”

Shiro does swear, then. Red’s eyes are open, watching him hazily.

“Takashi,” Shiro mutters, “is me.”

Red blinks, rolling off of him and propping himself up with an elbow. “Not Kuron?”

Shiro shakes his head. “It’s a long story, Keith.” Red freezes. Shiro frowns. “Sorry, that just slipped out, you remind me of —”

Red scrambles out of bed, holding up a pillow like a shield. “How did you know my real name?” he demands.

Shiro’s jaw drops. “Oh, _no,”_ he whispers. “No, no, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Red, no, _Keith,_ exclaims, “What are you talking about? Have we met before?” He squints. “I think I’d remember you.”

“Oh, god,” Shiro says, and buries his head in his hands. He doesn’t know whether to cry or scream.

The bed dips beside him, and a careful hand rests upon his shoulder. “Hey, what’re you...you’re kinda freaking me out.”

Against his own volition, he decides on crying. And once he starts, he can’t stop.

Keith recoils. “Hey! No, stop that! Did I break you? Here. Shit, man.” He shoves what vaguely resembles a box of tissues into Shiro’s lap, and Shiro uses them to hide his face entirely.

Shiro thought so much about finding Keith, but he never thought about what he would _do_ if he ever actually did find him. And now he has found him, but it isn’t _his_ Keith; his Keith is gone forever but this one is alive and Shiro doesn’t know _what_ to feel.

“Weird question,” Shiro sniffles, hunching his shoulders, “what are your parents’ names?”

Keith peers at him worriedly. “Uh,” he says slowly, “my dad’s name is Heath and my mom’s is Krolia…?”

Shiro laughs, but it comes out more of a choked sob. “Of course,” he says. “Is...is your dad still alive?”

Keith cocks his head. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t he be?”

Shiro exhales, focusing on breathing, in and out, in and out. “Good,” he whispers, and he means it. “That’s really good, Keith.” Then he pauses. “Do you know anyone named Takashi Shirogane?”

Keith stares at him. He looks almost scared, but not quite. “There...there was a man with that name in my dad’s flight class a few years ago,” he says. “I never met him — he died after the Talax hit our base. But I heard he was a good student. Why…?” His lips part. “Your name is Takashi.”

“Takashi Shirogane,” Shiro says. “Yes.”

He’s dead in this reality, then. Maybe that’s why it feels so right to stay.

But not Keith. Keith is alive and whole and _here,_ and also naked, and Shiro is in bed with him. It’s a lot to process. Shiro is not processing very well.

Keith swallows. “I’m not dead, am I?”

“No, not at all,” Shiro says, inexplicably giddy. “How did your parents meet?”

Keith raises his eyebrows. “Weird, but okay. They met at a military gala cocktail party between the Swords of Remora and the Earth Alliance.”

“A cocktail party,” Shiro repeats, and laughs until he cries again, but this time it’s out of sheer relief. He supposes it still sounds pretty hysterical.

Keith waits it out, rubbing his back and quietly observing Shiro have the second biggest breakdown of his life. “You gonna tell me what this is about?” Keith asks once Shiro is coherent.

Shiro looks at him. Really looks, this time, and when he does, he can’t believe he didn’t see it before. Red is Keith. From the way he smiles to the furrow of his brows to the way he moves to the sound of his voice — a sound Shiro had nearly forgotten — the resemblance is perfect and awful and wonderful.

But how can Shiro tell him?

He knows Keith, and he knows that to tell him the truth would be to force this Keith to compare himself to Shiro’s Keith, constantly. And it isn’t fair to ask anyone, especially not Keith, to live up to a standard like that one. Besides, Shiro doesn’t want to compare them, either. He wants to start over. He wants to do what he should have done before it was too late.

So Shiro reaches out, traces the curve of his cheek, and says, “You just remind me of someone. That’s all.”

Keith hums, questioning. “Someone named Keith?”

Shiro nods. “But he’s gone now.”

Keith searches his gaze. “You slept with him, too?”

Shiro laughs, a ragged thing like himself, and shakes his head. “No, but I loved him,” he says, and the confession is a weight off his chest. He’s never said it aloud, before.

“Hm.” Keith sits up against the pillows. “I’ve never loved someone. Seems messy.”

Shiro laughs again, and this time, it’s a little less ragged and a little more whole. “It is,” he agrees. “Wouldn’t recommend it.”

Keith grins. “Glad we’re on the same page,” he says, and pushes Shiro down onto the bed. “So, Takashi Shirogane, huh? Gotta say, doesn’t sound half as intimidating as _Kuron.”_

“Shiro,” Shiro blurts, and Keith falters. “My friends call me Shiro.”

Keith blinks owlishly. “Are we friends?”

They are absolutely not friends. They’re still on course for Purgatory, and it would still be in Shiro’s best interests to snap Keith’s neck and take over the ship controls himself. But he won’t. He could never hurt Keith — never again. Even if it is to his own detriment.

“I don’t really have any, anymore,” Shiro admits, and shivers as Keith presses the pad of his thumb to Shiro’s lips. “But you seem like a good place to start.”

Keith chuckles. “Can’t say I’ve heard that one before, Shiro. Alright, then, let’s talk _friends._ They don’t pay me much for this gig. Can you offer better?”

Shiro flips him in half a second, metal hand braced around Keith’s white throat. Keith stares, red flush rising in his cheeks as Shiro’s fingers tighten. “I think I have a few assets that might interest you,” he murmurs.

Keith’s lips quirk.


End file.
